AFA sent a letter to President Obama to support Palestinian. Read in PDF.

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Banda Aceh, September 26th, 2011

Dear President Barack Obama,

Aceh Fulbright Association (AFA) is a group of Acehnese scholars who graduated from a number of universities in the United States. Since 2006, following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami that devastated our homeland, Aceh, the Tsunami Relief Initiative sponsored by President Clinton and President Bush Senior allowed us the opportunity to receive this prestigious and competitive Fulbright scholarship to pursue master’s and doctoral degrees in different fields. Currently, most of us have returned to Indonesia, particularly Aceh to serve the public and to help with the recovery process. We are truly grateful for the opportunity we had and morally compelled to continuously contribute to the betterment of human kind and world peace.

With the spirit of creating peace and justice for all, we are sending you this letter to show our support to the current Palestinian and Israeli peace efforts. We, as Fulbrighters, are encouraged to support mutual understanding between different cultures of the world for one purpose: peace. Therefore, it is our duty to promote world peace as envisioned by the late Senator JW Fulbright, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and by you.

Because we believe in the importance of dialogue and fair solutions, accommodating the interest of both sides, Israel and Palestine, equally is a prerequisite for peace. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a big step toward the start of a lasting peace in the Middle East. We strongly believe that the United States support will not only cease the longtime conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but also will accelerate the democratization process that is currently taking place throughout the Middle East. Our hope is that the United States would support this effort by accepting Palestine as an independent nation within the United Nations General Assembly in 2011.